A trilateral deal on Greenland's security largely formalizes the access and influence the United States already enjoyed under existing frameworks, but it also ends a standoff that had strained NATO and threatened transatlantic trade, without touching on the contested issues of Danish sovereignty and Greenlandic self-determination. The United States, Denmark and Greenland announced on Sept. 18 an agreement on the security and defense of the island, which the three governments are expected to sign on Sept. 22 on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. The text remains unpublished, but according to a State Department official cited by the media, the deal grants the United States permanent access, basing and overflight rights that would remain valid even if Greenland becomes independent, and bars non-NATO countries from building bases or making sensitive investments on the island.